Wireless Waste

Portland schools have had to spend $172,000 fighting a parent's lawsuit over Wi-Fi.

One year ago, the parent of a Portland Public Schools
student sued the district with claims a new Wi-Fi network in his
daughter’s middle school was poisoning her and potentially harming other
students.

As WW reported, there’s no scientific evidence for such claims (see “Wi-Fi Woo-Woo,” WW,
July 13, 2011). The parent, David Mark Morrison, who works as a
rare-book dealer, is part of a pseudo-scientific movement that claims
Wi-Fi and related technologies cause everything from brain cancer to
infertility to digestive complaints.

Most studies that
adherents cite as evidence haven’t been published or peer-reviewed in
reputable scientific journals. Some anti-wireless websites sell
literature and protective charms, including amulets and crystals.

Morrison’s case might have been easy to label as frivolous and, it seems, might have been headed for an early dismissal.

Not so. Portland Public Schools officials tell WW
they have already spent $172,559 in public money to defend the district
against Morrison’s claim that PPS’s Wi-Fi network has harmed his
daughter.

The case against PPS
has dragged on in U.S. District Court in Portland, with hundreds of
hours billed by PPS’s outside counsel, the law firm Miller Nash.

“The fact that the
plaintiffs have so many purported experts, all of whom we had to
research and depose, really added to the cost, as did the extensive
discovery requests,” PPS general counsel and board secretary Jollee
Patterson told WW in an emailed response to questions.

The legal expense
comes at a time when PPS is strapped, and the City of Portland recently
diverted $7.1 million to help bail out the district.

Morrison did not return WW’s message. Nor did his attorney, Shawn E. Abrell of Camas, Wash. Last year, Morrison told WW he thought studies contradicting his beliefs were corrupted by industry.

One
Morrison expert PPS attorneys have had to depose is Barrie Trower, who
claims he worked on a “stealth” microwave warfare program for the
British Navy (noting he had no rank because he refused promotions) and
was assigned to a secret British prison housing “spies, dissidents,
international terrorists [and] gangland killers.”

Trower claims a
bachelor’s degree in physics earned in night classes, has been
repeatedly turned down by Ph.D. programs, and says he recently traveled
to consult with “the king in South Africa” on Wi-Fi dangers. (South
Africa abolished the monarchy in 1961.)

PPS has its own $400-an-hour expert, Brown University professor of epidemiology David Savitz.

“In the case of Wi-Fi
exposure,” Savitz writes in his declaration, “there is no epidemiologic
evidence whatsoever that counters the lack of biological support for a
potential health hazard.”

The school district’s
attorney, Bruce Campbell, argued in court filings that Morrison’s
experts present “fringe views outside the mainstream of science by
witnesses who are not qualified to offer their opinions.”

In a written response
to Campbell’s motion to strike his testimony, Trower concludes flatly
that “Wi-Fi uses a similar frequency to a microwave oven.”

"In the low usage areas, we found that our vehicles sit idle four times longer, ultimately affecting overall vehicle availability for the Portland membership base, as well as parking for the Portland community."

News
East Portland can't catch a break.Just this week KGW had a story called, "Diverse, non-cool East Por... More